by Annika Breinig (with thanks to Portia Ellis-Woods and Dominique Jeannerod)
No Alibis : a Bookshop to die for (83, Botanic Avenue, Belfast, BTL7 1 JL) Continue reading
No Alibis : An Interview with David Torrans
Adrian McKinty
Names & Places of Irish Noir
This is a word cloud story of Irish Noir. It is based on a corpus of 280 novels published between 1994 and 2015. The story told by the data represented here details a population of authors, ordered by the respective size of their outputs. This word cloud indicates the most productive authors; it suggests that the label “Irish Noir” designates a relatively small, but significant group of writers.
The next representation is based on these authors’ s places of birth.
In contrast to the previous one, and to where the action of Irish noir series are set (Jack Taylor’s Galway, Ben Devlin’s Strabane-Lifford Borderlands, Sean Duffy’s Carrickfergus, Ed Loy’s Dublin…), the third cloud here reflects the place of publication of their books. It shows that Irish Noir is actually made in Britain. And to a lesser extent in America. But it also indicates an emergence, of a number of publication places in Ireland : in Dublin, but as well in county Kerry, with Dingle as the headquarters of a publishing house actively engaged in the Irish noir phenomenon (Brandon).
How Noir is Belfast ?
Adrian McKinty and Stuart Neville, in the introduction to the recently launched collection of short stories, Belfast Noir (N.Y., Akashic, 2014) describe Belfast, with some claims, as ” the noirest city on earth”. The feeling seems to be shared by the international publishing industry. In so far at least as original titles of noir novels set in Northern Ireland have been changed, in translation or for the U.S. Market, in order to feature the name of the city. Or have been produced originally, abroad, or domestically with a title using explicitly Belfast as a byword for violence. Here are a few examples of such “Belfastxploitation”, with some images for a view on Belfast, as reconstructed from the outside…
Sam Millar , Die Bestien von Belfast: Ein Fall für Karl Kane, Translator : Joachim Körb
Atrium Verlag, Hamburg, 2013 (original, Bloodstorm, 2008).… Continue reading
International Crime Month
International Crime Month is a month-long initiative, involving crime fiction authors, editors, critics, and publishers and running throughout July 2014. It is made possible by the collaboration of four of Britain’s leading independent publishers—Melville House UK, Europa Editions, No Exit, and Serpent’s Tail—to promote Crime Fiction, described as ” one of the most vital and socially significant fiction genres of our time”.
http://www.europaeditions.co.uk/news/international-crime-month
International Crime Fiction Research Group 